Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Trigger.

"As one report noted, at Wellesley College students objected to "a sculpture of a man in his underwear because it might be a source of 'triggering thoughts regarding sexual assault.'

While the [students’] petition acknowledged that the sculpture might not disturb everyone on campus, it insisted that we share a 'responsibility to pay attention to and attempt to answer the needs of all of our community members.' Even after the artist explained that the figure was supposed to be sleepwalking, students continued to insist it be moved indoors."

11 comments:

I'll read the linked article in more depth later today, but I have a quick comment based on the quoted snippet.

I support moving the somnambulist indoors. He represents a danger to himself and community -- I mean, there's a chance he could step in front of a statue of a bus!

And then there's this: ". . . the artist explained . . ." That makes me think of "the comedian explained", i.e., people didn't get it, which at least in comedy is not a good thing. And then I think, well, art isn't necessarily meant to be "got" on first glance.

And then I think, put a smartphone in that statue's hand (and the downward gaze to match), give him a backpack, and you've got a pretty decent representation of a student zombie-walking to class, so unaware of his surroundings that his having forgotten to cover up does not even register.

I have some colleagues who are big on the trigger thing, and so I've tried to be sensitive about the idea generally. But one thing in the above AAUP report I like very much is this: "Some discomfort is inevitable in classrooms if the goal is to expose students to new ideas, have them question beliefs they have taken for granted, grapple with ethical problems they have never considered, and, more generally, expand their horizons so as to become informed and responsible democratic citizens."

I don't want my classroom to be a hostile place, but I think the trigger thing is quickly getting out of hand. I had a student last semester who asked for an alternate assignment because her dad was in the Army and we were reading a text that suggested defense spending had been out of control for decades. I let her pick something else from the book, but I don't know if I did the right thing for the student or not.

It's helpful to hear real stories on this because so much coverage of the trigger issue is making broad generalizations about Students Today.Did the student claim that reading an article about defense spending would be traumatic for her?

No, I let her off the hook. She started with the statement that her dad was in the military, and I asked her for more background. She said she'd be "offended," and I said something like, "Maybe there'll be something in the article you can argue with, to show a different side."

She shook her head and said something, "I don't need to hear all that negativity."

Like I said, I don't know if I made the right call. I might have handled it differently had I been in a different environment because here I'm often reminded how fragile our students are, and there is a strong anti-trigger movement in my department among a few prominent colleagues.

@HHH, she confuses mere disagreement with trauma. And really, how many military people through the years have openly discussed wasteful military spending? A whole bunch. And many have done so out of a sense of obligation and loyalty to the institution. Maybe she should have read a few short articles from people like that before asking for another assignment. Based on what you write, I'm fairly certain she wants to avoid any negativity regarding an institution she respects. It's no way to go through four years of college and no way to go through life. The only explanation I might understand is if her father is a total cranky blowhard and she's going to catch hell for the assignment. It's just such a strange response, I question what's really going on with her. This is not a criticism of you and I'm not a college educator. I am just sad at the crazy things you educators have to put up with.

Somehow we need to teach resilience (which I think is a good word for the quality we all need to cope with life -- not toughness or having a thick skin or some other phrase suggesting that words and ideas can't/shouldn't hurt sometimes, but strategies for acknowledging that words, ideas, and life itself do hurt sometimes, and still coping/moving on.)

I have to wonder whether part of the problem is how mean much of our public discourse has become -- a situation which can best be resolved by learning to argue more effectively and analytically, which can't be done unless students are exposed to a wide range of arguments.

What Was This?

College Misery was a dysfunctional group blog where professors got the chance to release some of the frustration that built up while tending to student snowflakes, helicopter parents, money mad Deans, envious colleagues, and churlish chairpeople.

Our parent site, Rate Your Students, started in 2005, and we continued that mission beginning in 2010. Ben at Academic Water Torture and Kimmie at The Apoplectic Mizery Maker both ran support blogs during periods when this blog had died.